Nov 15, 2025 | November 2025 J-KOA National Board Meeting

Attendees: Koya, Toni, Danielle, Eric, Maydha, Kia

Notes

• Icebreaker: If you could change anything about the way you were raised, what would it be? What would you keep/preserve? (10 minutes)

  • Eric

    • Change: wouldn’t change things

    • Keep: Preserve the way my parents showed me how to show affection and care for people

  • Toni

    • Change: I would have said yes to travel more

    • Keep: Parents always encouraged us to pursue whatever we wanted and never pressured us to go any one particular path

  • Danielle

    • Change: Parents pushed me more into arts vs. athletics and academics

    • Keep: How we grew up well-rounded

  • Koya

    • Change: Feeling forced to pursue certain hobbies growing up (but grateful for the discipline and guidance those hobbies taught, finding hobbies as an adult)

    • Keep: being put in certain hobbies because they shaped a lot of his interest today

• Department updates in the following order: (15 minutes)

  • President

    • Teks going well after insurance mishap

  • Treasurer

    • Still working on excel sheets to standardize ordering items

    • Starting a budget listing

    • Needs: timelines for when items need to be ordered for events

    • Will give other treasurers editing access to the Google ShareDrive to update all documents

  • Historian

    • No updates

    • Website needs to be updated with becoming a 501(c)

• National Director to update board members on recent developments regarding insurance policy and 501(c) designation (10 minutes)

  • We are all essentially business founders after the 501(c) designation!

  • J-KOA recognized as a nonprofit business

• Board discussion regarding updates to SOPs based on insurance policy and 501(c) designation (30 minutes)

  • Boston didn’t feel the pause because they were busy

  • AST missed two sessions

  • Next step: looking for donors, online presence needs to be updated to make sure everything aligns, look at supply list for overlap on ordering so we’re not ordering a bunch of extra items (i.e. soap, baking soda, etc.)

  • Things needed to be addressed:

    • Onboarding for mentors needs to be smoothed out

    • Question: do we want to create some form of certification for mentors so that we can keep track of who’s been trained? (yes! What needs to go into training? Outreach vs. mentorship)

    • Historian: Forms needed to be created (consent forms, liability waivers, media release forms, etc.) protocol for background checks (adjusting budget for making background checks, background checks for everyone on the boards, access to funds, etc. mentors covered by background checks by the schools), who’s in charge of recording that?

    • Eric -> Personnel, Toni -> Tracks who has/needs background checks, Danielle -> manages budgets for background checks

    • Background checks MUST INCLUDE sexual misconduct

    • Timeline? Planning for protocols to be set in for next year

    • Immediate needs: media release forms (maybe? Will get clarification)

    • Question: do any of these forms require legal review?

• Decision to hold all-hands meeting to update officers and members of updated SOPs: yay or nay -- 5 minutes for scheduling if 'yay'

  • General meeting with breakout sessions per role

  • Request: All-hands meeting quarterly!

  • Meeting schedule: Anticipate December 20th (with potential scheduling for after the new year if it does not work with a majority of the team)

  • December 20th: National Board meeting in San Diego!!

• Invited speakers: Kia Tuala to pitch collaboration on science communication and health and Maydha Kumar to pitch potential science advocacy collaboration (10 minutes/speaker)

  • Kia Tuala

    • Tautua Fitness

    • Cultural Ambassador, recently lost father to diabetes and wanted to pursue preventative care and wanted to share that information out

    • Science communication x social media health content

    • Podcast format interview that could be snipped up for content, “ask a firefighter, ask a scientist,” etc.

    • Need help put the science behind some of the health content Kia is creating to reach more people with helpful information

  • Maydha Kumar

    • Speak Out for Science

    • Formed by a group of friends across universities to reach more scientists about applying for money to support science funding

    • Need help gaining momentum to extend reach, asking for support to utilize our network to reach more people, potentially volunteers in the future for outreach

Next meeting December 20th IN-PERSON!! GET EXCITEDDDDD